As expected, the attack on Malala Yousafzai developed the long sought after national consensus that had been stressed as a genuine precondition for decisive action against the Taliban based in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA). However, now it is being ignored on the basis of another pretext: that radical Islamists (who are just a fistful) are resisting the action. It is not that only the operation is not being launched, both our government and strategic policy makers seem to be in no-action-at-all mood. It is an amazing and a fateful turn because this new pretext will always be available so technically there will be no action against the Taliban from now onwards. That there will be no action against the Taliban does not mean that there will be no action against us on the part of the Taliban. After every attack on every Malala, an SP Khurshid will be killed and beheaded; and a journalist, police officer, political worker and average Pakistani will get a lesson: give up resistance to the Taliban and we will come under their rule.
For a day or two after the attack on Malala, Pakistan was united against extremism and obscurantism. There were emotions and hullaballoo but by a single statement, Qazi Hussain Ahmed managed to distort it into confusion and suspicion. He said that the attack on Malala was meant to force the Pakistan army to swoop into NWA. He knows where to deal a blow. Soon his fistful of followers launched strong propaganda against Malala and the planned operation with the help of charts and doctored pictures. Other rightist parties and leaders with their eyes on the election followed suit and the so-called genuine reason for postponement of the operation was provided. In this way, conservatives vetoed the decision about the operation with utter disregard for national security and there is a probability that they will keep up this policy. Points: Taliban 1, Pakistan 0.
The first and foremost consequence of letting the national consensus go waste is to give an impression that Malala was wrong and the Taliban are right, which is set to lend credibility to their actions. In other words, it will strip the credibility of all our efforts against the war on terror, which is by now indeed our war. And credibility has a direct link with determination. Permitting the conservatives to spoil the rare opportunity is to shake the determination of Pakistan and cement that of its enemy. Once in power, the enemies of Pakistan will treat Pakistanis equally; no one, not even its sympathisers like Chaudhry Nisar, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Imran Khan, will be spared.
Besides that, the lack of an effective response to the attack gives an impression that perhaps there is no turning point to come or to say enough is enough. This impression desensitises the layman to terrorist attacks, compelling him to regard them as something that he has ‘got to live with’, which in turn unwittingly helps terrorists to widen their network. It also hurts the morale of our forces fighting against them in the border regions.
Moreover, society in general gets lessons from the attacks on officials and social activists. When no one asks about one who loses life by virtue of his/her resistance (of any form) to the Taliban, he/she becomes an example for others. Sanity demands of them to give up resistance to the Taliban to avoid the same fate. Society brought to this extent faces the danger of general breakdown. If the state does not come to the help of the forces of enlightenment and civilisation then the bond among them breaks and they fall apart into pieces. They then fight on their own, against their common enemy and with each other. This is the first step towards an awaiting ‘warlordism’. Perhaps we are in the process of taking this first step.
My favorite columnist, Zarrar Khuhro in his recent article published in an English daily questioned the achievement of the much-talked about operation in NWA and built a case in favour of the focus on the strength and capability of “the civilian law enforcement agencies.” The role of the civilian law enforcement agencies in the war on terror cannot be exaggerated but it would be an injustice to these agencies to apply them to terrorists, overlooking their (terrorists’) safe havens located somewhere in the same country. In this way, we may consume our civilian law enforcement agencies but not eliminate the terrorists. Their safe havens are to be dismantled for their proper elimination.
We as a nation/society have been failing to respond to this existential threat in an effective manner. If some among us are unequivocally opposing the Taliban, others are toeing their line of argument. We should be thankful to the Awami National Party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and all those journalists, columnists, civil society activists and political workers who are persistently opposing the Taliban by every means at their disposal. There will be an end to our free social and political life the day these groups, parties and individuals yield to the pressure that they have been receiving from the Taliban for quite some time. The new spate of threats from the Taliban is unprecedentedly compelling.
The strategy of the terrorists is very simple: they want to fish out the most vocal amongst us and force others to yield to their brutality to transform the war from Pakistan’s to a Pakistan army’s war. Internal terrorism is an existential threat to Pakistan and should not be underestimated. At this crucial stage, our institutions are required to take a severe and final action against terrorists to save Pakistan as a country and society.
The writer is a political observer. He can be reached at [email protected]